Greetings From Pittsburgh

Interactive Digital Postcard

INTERACTIVE MEDIA : EXPERIENCE INSTALLATION

How might we create an interactive service that can be used to communicate personal experiences amongst family?

While learning how to code interactive experiences, we were challenged to create a narrative-based interactive system that used speech recognition in P5.js . We had the freedom to explore various forms of narratives and iterate it to create the project. Using the p5.speech library, we needed to keep in mind how we would translate the chosen narrative into a set of procedural events and include conditions for the speech-responsive systems.

Our team, each of us new to the city of Pittsburgh, decided to build an interactive postcard that we could share with our friends and family back home. Creating the narrative around our travels and adventures in Pittsburgh, we illustrated the city in our own unique vision.

Team

MacKenzie Cherban, Manjari Sahu, Monique Smith

4 weeks – IxD Lab, Carnegie Mellon University, 2016

Instructor: Kyuha Shim

Role

Tools & Processes

p5.js, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects

Explore the Experience

By opening this link in Chrome, you can explore the interactive experience. You can either read our narrative from below to unfold the story, or you can use the list of keywords below to simply interact with the piece. After you are finished, just press “P” and you will be able to print a postcard for yourself!

Best viewed on any 15″ screen laptop. Make sure your laptop microphone is on.

One day, we decided to take a break from our studies and explore Pittsburgh. We started in the Strip District, where we tasted some amazing food. Next, took a self-driving Uber and headed towards Downtown. We drove down by the water and passed by many beautiful bridges and even caught a clipse of the Warhol over on the Northside. Later we went to Point State Park to visit the fountain and soak in some nature. While there, we could see the Steelers playing in Heinz Field, kayakers in the river, and people partying on the Gateway Clipper. After that we travelled to Oakland, and noticed all the beautiful trees that make up Pittsburgh fall. We stopped by the Cathedral of Learning to visit the multicultural rooms before heading to some of the neighboring museums. Our last stop in Oakland was at Phipps Conservatory before we headed to Mount Washington to ride the Incline. Looking at Pittsburgh from this view, we were proud to have come to Carnegie Mellon. We were just three little scotty’s exploring this great city. What a fine day in Pittsburgh!